He might be celebrating his 50th year as Glenbrook Cinema owner this November but Ron Curran’s start in the business was less than promising.
“The first night we opened to the public we had nobody turn up. Not a soul,” he said.
It wasn’t that the opening night film – the 1968 Elvis Presley musical, Speedway – was less than memorable (although it was) but simply that Glenbrook cinema-goers weren’t used to seeing movies on a Friday night when Ron and his then wife Judy launched the venture. The previous owner only showed films once a week on Saturdays.
Luckily for Mr Curran, business quickly picked up. A grand total of 39 Elvis fans saw Speedway on the Saturday and locals soon became conditioned to Friday night flicks as well.
Twenty-seven years later, 20,882 Glenbrook Cinema patrons saw the 1995 Australian hit, Babe, making it the cinema’s most popular film ever.
It’s safe to say Glenbrook Cinema had turned a corner.
“One of the reasons we’ve survived is because we had challenges left, right and centre – every which way – which still continue of course,” said Mr Curran. “Being able to deal with those challenges and keep running [is the key to our success].”
When the Currans bought the cinema in November, 1968 they had one child, and another on the way. Ron, 27, was working as a magazine journalist while Judy had a job with Hoyts’ head office in Sydney.
“With young children and everything else happening, the challenges were enormous,” he said of those early days.
The early cinema had flat floor seating and Mr Curran had to close the curtains in the old School of Arts building to block out the light for screenings.
The film canisters would arrive from Sydney via train and were so heavy the only way Mr Curran could get them into the projector box was by climbing a ladder – with missing rungs – outside the building.
The cinema only opened on Fridays and Saturdays until the 1970s when it became a full time operation, and it wasn’t until 1994, when his first wife Judy passed away, that Mr Curran himself gave up his day job and worked at the cinema full-time.
His family has always been integral to the cinema’s success, with children Alida, Ben and Tamara and stepdaughter Corinne, and daughter-in-law Fiona, all working there at some point over the years, and now his grandchildren Jessica and James, and his second wife Karen also involved behind the scenes
But Ron Curran’s passion for movies began at an early age.
At just six years old he bought a butter box from the grocery store near his family’s Dulwich Hill home and “created” his first cinema. “It had curtains that opened, the whole works,” he said. “My brother made theatre boxes out of matchboxes for the side walls… It was a success!”
With an early passion like this, it’s not surprising many of the landmark moments in the Springwood resident’s life relate to movies – whether it was his mother taking him to see the 1953 Disney film Peter Pan at Sydney’s Mayfair Cinema, or seeing Breakfast at Tiffanys as his first “movie date” with Judy.
It is the charm and atmosphere of Sydney’s early movie theatres that has guided Mr Curran’s approach at Glenbrook Cinema.
While big cinema chains survive by charging a fortune at the candy bar and bombarding patrons with advertisements before each movie, Mr Curran admits he’s “a bit old-fashioned”. Patrons don’t need to re-mortgage their house to visit the Glenbrook Cinema candy bar and they can settle into their seats safe in the knowledge they won’t face a barrage of loud advertisements.
“I object to paying good money and then having somebody shout something at you to buy this or buy that. I think it’s wrong,” he said.
This old-fashioned ethos extends to the cinema’s staff greeting evening patrons with Minties as they leave the theatre. They also regularly personalise that approach to farewell gifts depending on the movie. Cinema-goers who saw Forrest Gump were given chocolates as they left the theatre while a revival of the Hitchcock thriller Psycho saw staff hand out small soaps courtesy of “Glenbrook Cinema and the Bates Motel”. (Handing out plastic bags of sherbet following the illegal drug trade drama, Traffic, “didn’t go down as well”, said Mr Curran.)
For his feat of running a single-screen cinema for 50 years, Mr Curran was honoured at this year’s Australian International Movie Convention held on the Gold Coast.
“We’re going to celebrate our 50th year by breaking even this year,” he joked to laughter and applause from the audience.
The actual celebrations will culminate in a gala event on November 27 where an exclusive film, not due for general release until next year, will premiere.
The 50th anniversary celebrations will also include a Festival of Favourite Films from November 28 to December 5. This will include Hollywood classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and My Fair Lady, Glenbrook Cinema hits like Babe and Titanic, and some movies that are personal favourites of Mr Curran’s, like The Red Shoes.
The eight-day festival probably won’t give the latest Hollywood blockbuster a run for its money in the profit stakes, but Mr Curran is content simply to share his love of the movies with the rest of the community.
“Unfortunately I’m a bit of a romantic,” he said.
Glenbrook Cinema patrons wouldn’t have it any other way.